Ecstasy, ice becoming the drug of choice in SA

SOUTH Australia’s illicit drug users are leading a national trend towards purer forms of party drugs ecstasy and ice, rather than speed and heroin.

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SOUTH Australia’s illicit drug users are leading a national trend towards purer forms of the party drugs ecstasy and methamphetamine rather than speed and heroin.

The Australian Drug Trends Conference at the University of NSW in Sydney today will hear the latest research from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.

The Ecstasy and Related Drugs Reporting System reveals a national trend towards increasing use of crystal MDMA, although pills remain the most popular form of ecstasy used, among the almost 800 users of psychostimulants surveyed.

Crystal methamphetamine or “ice” was fast becoming the drug of choice among people who inject drugs, with 877 surveyed in the Illicit Drug Reporting System.

That trend was more pronounced in SA, where more people inject methamphetamine, including speed and crystal meth or “ice” — 51 per cent of users surveyed in SA, compared with 29 per cent nationally — and a quarter were considered heavy users, injecting two to three times a day.

SA also has more heavy users of ecstasy, with 40 per cent using ecstasy weekly or more frequently, compared with 25 per cent nationally.

South Australians were also taking larger amounts of ecstasy. About 65 per cent were popping two or more pills in a session, compared with 29 per cent nationally.

Ecstasy seems to be readily available here, as 72 per cent of those surveyed reported ecstasy pills, powder and capsules were “very easy” to come by, compared to 55 per cent nationally.

Crystal MDMA was also “easy” to obtain and taken by 63 per cent of those surveyed in the last six months.

UNSW researcher Dr Monica Barratt said the situation warrants an Australian pill testing trial and hopes to “bring stakeholders together, to agree on the right model”.

“Quality control is an issue in these unregulated markets, due to there being no manufacturing standards, the capacity for adulteration with cheaper ingredients and through production errors, highly variable purity ... including some very high doses on the market and also the proliferation of new, novel substances being sold as other things,” she said.

“There have been a lot of pills found recently in the UK and Europe with very high doses of MDMA and this can be really problematic especially if people take two without realising it’s a very high dose.”

The two national surveys of drug users are performed annually “to provide early warnings of trends”, a spokeswoman said.

“The results are not representative of drug use among the general population, nor are they intended to be,” she said.

“The results are intended to indicate emerging trends to assist policy makers, law enforcers and clinicians.”